Knife Terminology

The knife I showed in post #34 has the tangs and top of the blades flush with the the handle. No exposed corners to snag on pockets etc. Does that make it a 'sunken joint' ?
 
Stove Pipe Kick
(once again, definition provided by Mister Bose)

pipe.jpg
 
Relieved Liners - I know what they are but zerogee and Durwood described it better than I ever could.

zerogee said:
Basically you can think of relieved liners as removing some of the thickness of the liners around the pivot pin area to create thin integral washers for the blade tang to ride on - reducing the metal to metal contact area - and if done right, making the knife open and close more smoothly.

-- Dwight
Click to expand...

Durwood said:
...and stopping the blades from developing rub marks from repeated openning and closing:thumbup:
Click to expand...
 
I like sunken joints, but I think you lose some blade length unless the handle is a little curved at the end.
 
Just because I'm into the fine details, I am going to protest the term "sunken"! I believe the term is "sunk". A sunk joint!
Now where is my Staggy swedgie dammy wharny slippie??
 
O.K.- - -Word for Wednesday; complete with picture.
CHOIL

A notch at the junction of the cutting edge and the tang.
MorelyClover1Tang.jpg


Notice the nice clean junction at the sharpened edge and the tang. If a cutler is going to use a fine wheel or belt to put a good sharp edge on the knife, he won't bump into the tang and make it messy looking. Keeps it clean and professional looking.
When the choil is missing, or the tang is marred there, it's often an indicator that the blade is worn down some. For us collectors, it can indicate the difference between "near-mint" and "excellent", when rating a knife.
Of course a choil can be recut, so you must know blade shapes to be sure of antique knives.
 
I haven't seen anything about the correct pronunciation for the word choil. I have heard it prounounced different ways like ch-ole or ch-oil (as in cheese). Maybe it is pronounced c-oil (as in chrome). Go to websters.com and see what you find for choil...NOTHING!
 
Thomason said:
Stove Pipe Kick
(once again, definition provided by Mister Bose)

pipe.jpg
Click to expand...


I believe forging blades with a 'stove pipe' kick meant that they were much more adaptable. The square kick could be filed down to meet the requirements of each particular knife without changing its shape. From the times when each knife was an individual.
 
From the days of hand forging, the 'neb' is the little bit at the end of the tang that gave the forger something to grip. Of course, it was then removed once the blade was properly shaped and ready for finishing.

See bottom and 4th from bottom blades in photo.

Blades002.jpg


Artist rendition of forging a blade in 1844.

scan0003-2.jpg
 
Going back to clean up some un-answered questions;
s-k, if the tang run-up is hidden, you have a sunk joint. No corner sticking out.
Get this (real term!); If the tang only sticks out a little, you have a semi-sunk joint!!
Kerry, choil rhymes with oil; Webster didn't know everything! I'm going to have to look up "neb" now, and see if old Noah missed that too!!
Too much bookwork, and not enough cutlery in that man's life!!
 
More stuff to clear up;
Neb is an old English or Scottish word meaning beak, or nose. That was an easy one.
Much more complex, is the topic of handle materials that DaveinNY brought up a while back, in post #8.
He actually asked about ten questions there, so I thought I'd bring up one that confuses me, and that's REDBONE.
If it's reddish brown, is it redbone? How red does redbone have to be? There are some purist who take a narrow view of redbone, mostly Case collectors. I think there is no disputing that these are redbone;
RedboneGroup.jpg

But what about these?? they certainly have some reddish color in them, but are they redbone?? Or even Greenbone??
Eric3.jpg

I don't know. Opinions please.
 
I have heard that Red bone stopped in Case XX (1940-64). Therefore no USA XX (65-69) had Red bone Scales or Case XX USA Dotted Knives (1970- 79). Also Green Bone Stopped with Case XX (1940-64). More than one Case Expert has told me this.
 
Thanks waynorth for the pictorial of Case redbone. The bottom two knives in the top photo have a distinctive jigging pattern, longer lines. Is there a name for that type of jigging?
 
DaveinNY said:
Thanks waynorth for the pictorial of Case redbone. The bottom two knives in the top photo have a distinctive jigging pattern, longer lines. Is there a name for that type of jigging?
Click to expand...
The bottom knife in the top pic is Case jigging that I believe they did in-house.
The knife above it is Schatt's (Queen's) reproduction of it done recently. I don't know if Case ever named it.
 
Bone Jigging!
I've always wondered about the jigging process. Hand jigging must have been tedious, but it produced a nice effect, and quite a variety of patterns. Early knives can be stunning and unique.
Machine jigging was inevitable, as much as all the other machine processes that have occurred in the industrial revolution.
Think of all the patterns you've seen; Rogers bone, early and late, Remington bone, Case's Green and Red bones. Winterbottom, Union/Ka-Bar. New York had some nice distinctive patterns. Lately I've been collecting Schrade knives, peachseed and earlier.
I've never seen anyone run a jigging machine though. Would love to!!
Custom makers do some nice artistic work with small hand-held rotary tools, i.e. Dremels.
It would be interesting to see someone jig bone with hand tools as well.
I'm kind of rambling on here, but it seems to me that if you see how it's done, you get another dimension of enjoyment out of these shiney (and not so shiney) things we collect!
Does anyone know where there is a film clip, or other opportunity to see how it is done??
In a while, I will post some pictures of the various patterns, compared!
 
I've probably posted this before but here's an article by Bernard Levine on bone jigging:

http://pweb.netcom.com/~brlevine/bonehand.txt

I've heard Bob Cargill made his own bone jigging machine. Wish we could see a picture of it.

I've always liked New York Knife Co. bone. I'm told this Smith Brothers knife was done by NYK Co. Sorry for the crappy scan.

smith017.jpg
 
Thanks for the link, Mike. And for showing us your Smith Brothers! That's a nice one. We talk about jigging a lot around here, so I thought I'd follow the NYK path for a while, as a way to get into some disscussion on the different types.
As always, with old knives, it's hard to develop the history, unless you were there. The best I can do is show a few surviving examples, and see where it leads. Here are 4 NYKs. One is marked OVB (Hibbard, Spencer& Bartlett) but I think you will all agree it's an NYK made example.
The two on the left have different jigging from the two on the right.
I have seen these two variations on a lot of knives made by NYK. I can only guess why they differ. The left two have an earlier version of their punch, patented in 1902. The third knife has a later version patented in 1916. The last EE knife has the earlier punch.
You could guess that the left two were hand jigged, and the right two had some kind of machine assisted jigging, but it's not 100% clear; to me anyway.
Let's talk about NYK jigging for a bit. Show us what you have, and share your knowledge please!!
NYKJigging.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top